


Evidence

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [27]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221-not-B, Retirement, bees & evidence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:05:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They're never far behind their tracks...”</p>
<p>Would they miss it, the evidence, if they retired to the country?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evidence

_"From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other."—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet_

 

They’re never far behind their tracks, like the fox (female,5.2 kgs, missing a dewclaw) that ran recently along this edge of the pond, as August’s end hung overwater,and the brown-eyed susans fluttered open in unison.

So many eyes. The hum of hives and bees that sip tears.

It’s been years, and yet beneath the pond’s surface the bluegills still mull, their dim fisheries disrupted here by a bobber’s flat smack, and there by the distant shouts of criminals running the gauntlet of the brook, their poles shouldered, their lines slung hopelessly in the low oaks for deducers to find. They tied flies here once (or tried: _bored_ ), and snared sunfish with balls of bread, only to slip them back into the water’s green envelope--not least for their trails of pearlish bubbles, or the rapid-disappearing ripples they tried to catch.

It‘s a pact they return for again and again, the gemmy frieze of the pond shattered, the concentric relief of stones thrown, the lift and disappointment of presence: _They’re here._ They’ve left nothing behind but scraps of bait, a kind of longing (for their _street_ , for their shot wall) embodied that even now seems visible. Already this year’s bishop’s lace has blown, and brookward the old growth, its sleeping droop disturbed, shades their still-divided hearts, and all the evidence they could not keep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was working on this when Chapbook sent me this article on Thai bees that drink human tears. Such a great bit of bee-knowledge, and fits the mood:
> 
> [Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) That Drink Human Tears](http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2317/JKES0811.17.1)
> 
>  “Lisotrigona cacciae, L. furva and Pariotrigona klossi (Meliponini, Apidae) workers drank lachrymation (tears) from human eyes in more than 262 naturally-occurred cases at 10 sites in N and S Thailand during all months of the year.... On man the bees were relatively gentle visitors, mostly landing on the lower eyelashes from where they imbibed tears for 0.5–2.5 min, often singly but occasionally in congregations of 5–7 specimens per eye.”


End file.
